May is designated as Hepatitis Awareness Month, which helps raise awareness of the disease and encourages those to learn their status. Swope Health started the Hepatitis C program in 2019, which has seen a significant increase in patient-count over the years.
Rachel Melson, DNP, FNP C is the Director
of the Swope Health Outreach Clinic and has been a key contributor to the program’s creation and success. It started as a pilot program in 2019 and went on to become a key health program in line with other chronic disease management programs at Swope Health.
“There was such a backlog of people who didn’t have access to care that we saw 50 patients in the first 90 days,” Melson said. “A few patients didn’t need treatment or needed to go to a specialist to treat advanced liver disease, but out of the 42 who were left, 100% of them were cured.”
Due to the success of that trial, Swope Health has continued to treat Hepatitis C and spread it to multiple providers and clinical sites across the Kansas City region.
“Now, we are getting close to 700 patients who have started treatment since 2019,” she said.
The CDC recommends that every adult over the age of 18 get tested for Hepatitis C at least once in their lifetime. Swope Health offers Hepatitis C testing, treatment, and screenings with rapid results. The services are provided at the Swope Health primary care clinics, along with different locations with the Mobile Unit that travels to shelters for people who are unhoused or in recovery spaces.
“We have point of care testing, which means you can get a Hep C test result within 20 minutes, right along with an HIV test that takes 15 minutes. We can do that with a finger poke, which every clinic has access to,” she said. “If someone has a positive test, we get them in for an appointment with one of our treating providers within two weeks.”
Accessing a cure for Hepatitis C is simpler than ever. To treat Hepatitis C, most patients either take three daily pills for eight weeks or one daily pill for 12 weeks. Swope Health takes a final set of labs with the patient once they finish their treatment, to determine if they’ve been cured. If so, they’re cured from Hepatitis C forever.
“The only way to know if you have Hepatitis C is to get tested,” Melson said. “Since Hepatitis C doesn’t have many obvious symptoms, routine testing is the only way we know if someone has been exposed and needs treatment. Left untreated, Hepatitis C can cause liver failure, liver cancer, and even death.”
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an estimated 2.4 million are people living with Hepatitis C. Do you need to know your status? Make an appointment at Swope Health today by clicking here.
